IDMineralSurveys

Absolutely!

On 4/11/2019 at 1:21 PM, phrunt said:

 

Mine only ever bump falses in manual 10 or auto+ and I can usually get away with staying in those modes with a good ground balance.

I wouldn't be surprised if you really like the GM and use it a lot more than you think, it will be deeper than the GB2.

I wanted a 24k also to try it out but now the price has gone up I have no plans to buy one.  The money could be put to better use elsewhere as I know it's not worth the price increase.

I've been using the GM exclusively for the past month now - both coils, and find I like it's operation being much quieter than the constant threshold sound of the GB2. Bump falsing is minor and doesn't bother me... I'm running mostly in auto+ and switch to ++ or manual 9 or 10 only occasionally when i find i can for slow small area checking, but it is then noisier but sensitivity is heightened. The best training ground i found was running it along a sand & gravel rock mix lake shoreline one weekend where there are literally 1000's of shards of aluminum shavings from fishermen's boats being beached! Tough times hunting, but i did still find a thin 24k gold band ring!! My wife had been wearing for the past three weeks- ha.

I'm heading to Alaska in 2 weeks for nugget hunting and am taking both the monster & the GB2. I plan to use both for sure.

Phrunt- what do you mean by "bulb falsing"?  Is it a problem? How to fix?

I got my Gold Monster full box at Cabela's for $535.99 retail. They didn't have it on the website, but have it in the local store. Couldn't pass it up for a backup to my GB2.

I want to pick up a 24K also, but it's  a bummer that the price went up.

On 3/18/2019 at 2:23 PM, mn90403 said:

I targeted gold but didn't come back with any.  When in Gold Basin you can also target other things.  I went back to an area (actually several) where I had found meteorites and I got a couple.  One is flattish and only weighs a half an ounce and the other one on the right is 1.5 ounces.  These were found with the 7000.  After I found them I experimented with settings for the Equinox on finding meteorites.

Meteorites are like hot rocks and can resemble the ground.  It was really not possible to hear them unless I was in gold mode.  I went from slow to very fast.  I went from all metal to reject 9 only in gold mode.  Hot rocks are the problem for a VLF.  I think the setting that needs more experimenting is speed at maximum, iron reject can vary but reject just 9.  This gives an audio response for objects above ground noise and lets me hear a meteorite.

Does anyone have a suggested 800 setting for meteorites?

Mitchel

I've added a few pictures of Gold Basin for those of you who don't see it often.

 

 

 

 

Ask your local store to see if they can get it in!  I was told by a close friend here in N Idaho that he had heard about the price in January... so I went to the store the following week end to check it out. He was correct and with a couple of Cabela's gift cards I had to go towards the price, after local tax my final was $443.  I couldn't pass it up because I needed a second gold machine for backup and for use when my daughter, dad or friend tags along while I'm using my GB2. It was the only one they had that day.

I have since done some air test comparisons between the GM and GB with differing sizes of nuggets and put it into a table for my own use curiosity... something to do while passing the time waiting for the over 6 1/2 feet of snow that's fallen at my house to melt. Unfortunately the snow is not going away soon, so after more shoveling this afternoon, I'm going over to a friend's place to play with panning concentrates and maybe detecting on some of his buckets of rock specimens in his shop.  For those interested, the air tests were much more similar than I had expected...between the two detectors in a huge variety of dialed settings they were neck and neck, and the most surprising in that I didn't expect the GM 10" coil to see the tiniest pin head speck as easily as the 5" or the GB2 6".   Regards, Mike

Yes...welcome to the forum. I'm recently new on the forum also although I've been reading everything I could find here about the detectors and techniques people are talking about bringing them success for a while. I'm in North Idaho also ...are you a member of the NWGPAA?  Mike

Thanks guys!  Great suggestions. 

I am intending to try the Lithium Batteries this next season and chart the voltages on each battery from brand new in each port;  I hadn't been doing that yet this past season.  For now I'm using the non-rechargeable Li because a friend in the electronics industry pointed out to me that the rechargeable types run a typical max voltage just under the 9.0volts  (more like 7.7 to 8.6V).  New voltages on the non-rechargeable ones I have purchased thus far ranges 9.24V to 9.49V

Does anyone have experience with switching the batteries for prolonged performance? I thought I read somewhere that in the GB2 the main board runs on one battery and the audio circuitry may be running on the other? 

Thanks, Mike

Simon,

Thanks for the suggestion. I did pick up a set of Lithium batteries after my last trip out and am going to give them a try - maybe they will help the voltage stability for prolonged field performance like you mention.  It just might be a while as we have winter setting in. I will let you know how they perform in the GB2.

I was originally looking to purchase the GM1000, but as they weren't available yet March 2017 and knowing Lunk had the experience, I called him up chatting about what areas I wanted to go detecting... N Idaho gold!. He recommended the Gold Bug 2 for me - he's right ...it fits my personality. He introduced me to Gerry and I met him during a trip to Boise and bought one from him with the 6.5" coil. I really appreciated Gerry's helpful nature in getting me started with it. 

My 3rd trip out I found my first nugget (ever) ...a 218 grainer out of an old tailings pile.  The last time i was on that mtn was for a gov't survey in May 1988.  My next three trips prospecting - nothing, and then 6 tiny pieces one weekend on a late summer trip with Lunk. For the record he had found 16 more to my 6!

He was right that I would like the GB2. The one thing l've noticed is that I can tell a difference in the sensitivity after a solid 8 hr. run on the batteries. It seems to like the full voltage of fresh batteries best. 

A nice nugget in Alaska tundra... not a tree